Smartphones and Work: Offering Benefits or Creating a Mess?

Do smartphones dilute the work-life balance?

Technology is rapidly changing in today's society - quickly outpacing the rates at which companies purchase new tools and innovative equipment.  For personal use, this technology is allowing people to stay connected like never before.  However, this computing power is also creating problems when it enters the work environment.  Smartphones may allow workers to increase their productivity, but they also disrupt the work-life balance when emails are being answered off the clock.  Along with this, allowing personal devices to be used at work can create many problems, including increased IT department costs and legal mayhem if anything is to go wrong.  In the end, companies must weigh the benefits of allowing employees to use their own smartphone for work against having fewer hassles from simply standardizing equipment that the employees use.  I will explore some of the opinions and issues that both companies and employees face below.

Opinion 1: Personal devices should be welcomed by companies.
Let's face it.  Employees have technology that they use to simplify their lives.  Sooner or later, they are going to end up trying to simplify their work with the same technology.  With the changing environment concerning mobile technology, employees are bound to use their own devices to get around all of the controls that companies place on user settings, internet access, and other applications on work equipment.  Given that many view the need for some balance between work and a little personal satisfaction from browsing the web or listening to music, being faced with access restrictions at work can become infuriating.

John Parkinson wrote in the Wall Street Journal discussing why personal devices should be welcomed in the workplace.  I have copied his points below:

1. "The first is mobility. Most innovation today is focused around mobile devices—and it's becoming hard to enforce or even define standards around these technologies because they are changing so rapidly. No, you can't yet lock down a phone or tablet the way you can a laptop—it has to be able to connect to open public networks for voice and data traffic, as well as to corporate wireless-data networks—but there are things that a business can do to secure and manage mobile devices. Granted, these measures are imperfect and expensive, but every business will have to learn how to do this eventually, and as the techniques improve, costs will fall.
2. The second force is virtualization. With this technique, software installed on a laptop or other device acts as a virtual computer through which other applications are run, isolating them from the rest of the machine. Once the user's software environment is separate from the hardware, it matters less what that device is or who owns it—the IT department's main concern is simply to identify and authenticate the user.
3. The third force is the rising use of temporary, contract and outsourced labor, and the parallel rise of technology networks that allow multiple companies to connect and collaborate on business processes. It may not be economically or even legally possible to dictate what technology contractors use, and contractors aren't going to want to have different devices for different customers. The same is true of business partners and outsourcers, especially those located offshore.
4. The final force is the difficulty in getting a good return on fixed assets. If you have to buy a laptop, a tablet and a phone for every employee—many of whom already own at least two such devices outside of the workplace—you're tying up capital that could be used for something else. You're also incurring additional costs for maintaining and disposing of all that equipment."

Parkinson also discusses that it gives many companies the right to sell their products for employee use.  Rather than businesses fixing a contract with a vendor for three years, it also gives employees the opportunity to use technology that they feel comfortable with.  While all these are positive aspects that businesses should consider, there are also some negatives to mixing your own mobile technology with your work.

Opinion 2: Allowing personal devices creates a mess.

In the same article cited above, author Erik Sherman voices his strong opinions about how workers using their own devices only causes a legal fiasco.  For example, Sherman writes about how the hardware would belong to the employees, making it extremely difficult to get permission to delete sensitive information in the case of layoffs or termination.  Along with that, employers who monitor device usage suddenly face privacy concerns when the employees use their smartphones for their personal lives as well.  It is one thing to monitor productivity while at work, but it can soon cross lines when the employee is also viewing personal content.  Finally, employers may face some liability for personal information that is lost if the employee loses the device.  Since the company would remotely delete all of the information saved on the phone or other mobile device, they could potentially delete personal contacts and important information.  This creates further issues - including what kind and how much information a company is allowed to save on their servers in case of this situation. 

Personal devices can create a
legal mess and high IT costs.

Sherman also mentioned costs in his argument, stating that there may not be great savings from having employees use their own smartphones and mobile devices.  He suggests that while certain costs from purchasing devices are eliminated, IT investment suddenly increases dramatically.  This is due to the fact that each device would require its own setup for software that the company uses.  Since there are countless phones, tablets, and laptops available, this could become a nightmare.  These costs also increase if there are glitches in any of the software, which would require custom patches for each operating system.  Productivity could also be slowed in the case of employees damaging their equipment.

Opinion 3: Using personal smartphones for work erodes the work-life balance.

Employees often have the chance to work from home, but being allowed to use personal smartphones for work-related tasks (such as email, social media, etc.) can quickly interfere with time off the clock.  This technology has given many the chance to work from a distance instead of an office cubicle, but many are finding themselves stressed and disconnected from their family and personal life.  If they are receiving work email outside of their daily work schedule, they feel more obligated to reply to it from their phone.  The phenomenon of being "wired" started with Blackberries years ago, but has soon spread through the development of many more devices.  Author Micky Mee reports that the current recession has created worry for employees, fearing that more connected workers will be more likely to earn and retain jobs.  While it is the individual's choice to keep their personal life personal, there is some erosion of work-life balance from the integration of advanced mobile networking. 

What do you think?

Sound off in the comments and tell us if you think that employers should encourage employee use of their own device (or if you think it's a complete nightmare)!